


A Good Clean Bust with Sequel Rights

by Chicklet_Girl



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-16
Updated: 2009-12-16
Packaged: 2017-10-17 03:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chicklet_Girl/pseuds/Chicklet_Girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets a mysterious delivery from Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Good Clean Bust with Sequel Rights

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, **hwmitzy**! There's a note about the title at the end of the story.

When John returns to his office after lunch, there's a package on his desk, with Jeannie's return address in the upper-left corner. John's stymied until he realizes that his birthday is in a couple of weeks, at least by Earth reckoning. It's a little tough for him to keep track of the calendar on Earth without consulting the conversion calculator Rodney wrote and installed on the network.

John uses his knife to cut through the packing tape and pull off the brown-paper wrapping. Under the brown, there's another layer of wrapping paper, blue with stars this time, under about half a pound of transparent tape. Jeannie must have let Madison do the wrapping. Inside there's a smallish white cardboard box. John lifts the lid and finds... a flash drive.

It's a pretty cool flash drive, though, a surfer on a board, oriented so that the guy is standing when the drive is locked into John’s laptop port. Oh, and there's data on the drive already. Just one folder, titled "Favor," which... is a little strange. But that's Jeannie. John double-clicks on Favor to open it, and it's filled with dozens of files: "Rockford1x01.avi," "Rockford1x02.avi," all the way through "Rockford7x06.avi." He can't quite believe it's going to be what he thinks it's going to be, but yeah. It's the entire run of _The Rockford Files_ , on one little flash drive, in time for his birthday. _Sweet._

He knocks off early and heads to his quarters. Officer's prerogative. He digs out some popcorn and gets set up on the couch, with the flash drive installed and the first episode pulled up. He’s already thinking of the flash drive as Kahuna.

The show's not quite as awesome as he remembered it being. The plots are a bit too simple and the villains a little too obvious, but Jim is just as cool as ever, driving an American behemoth that might actually be longer than a puddlejumper, and spouting off cynical one-liners amid that golden light that California gives to everything filmed there. John has no idea how Jeannie knew to do this.

John picks a couple more episodes at random, and when he scrolls down the list to the bottom, he sees a file titled “RoughGuide.avi,” so he opens it. It’s Jeannie sitting at her kitchen counter, with her curly blonde hair and McKay-blue eyes and some kind of bohemian skirt that looks like it has beads on it. Jeannie smiles and says, “I know. It’s pretty random, isn’t it? But it’s not as random as it looks. He’d kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but… well, I think you can figure it out, can’t you? It’s not like he can order anything from Amazon for you.” She stops and smiles even wider. “So Rodney asked me – the Rodney McKay version of ‘asked,’ which is really more of a demand, as I’m sure you’re aware – to buy the DVDs and rip them to this flash drive. I hope you got them in time. The SGC doesn’t exactly keep me in the loop regarding open wormholes to the Pegasus galaxy. I mean, unless they need me to help out or something, but…” Jeannie rolls her eyes at herself. “Anyway, here’s _The Rockford Files_ , because Rodney asked for them, for you. Happy Birthday, John, from Kaleb and Madison and me. And, I guess, from Rodney, too. Goodbye.”

John closes the file and stares at the screen. Holy shit. Rodney had to have sent his request to Jeannie months ago. And she ripped about a hundred and forty episodes and TV movies because he asked her to do it for John. The realization hits John like a bantos stick to the stomach.

The doorbell chimes and John opens it to reveal Rodney. “I heard we got some deliveries. Or, I mean, I got some packages and thought maybe you had gotten something good. McKenzie in the kitchen got a case of Tim Tams, the real ones from Australia, and I had to give up two entire bags of Doritos just to get three cookies, but it was worth it. One of the bags was that taco-flavored kind I can’t eat because it might have lime juice in it.” He pauses, finally realizing he’s babbling. John takes the opportunity to pull him into the room and kiss him. It doesn’t take long for Rodney to get with the program.

John pulls back to take a few breaths. “C’mon, watch one with me.”

“Right now? We were – right.” Rodney looks like he’s making a supreme sacrifice.

“Don’t worry,” John says, patting the couch next to him. “After this episode, we’ll pick up where we left off.” Rodney sits, and John scoots down until his head is in Rodney’s lap. Rodney immediately starts running his fingers through John’s hair, which normally John finds kind of awkward and inexplicable, but now it’s kind of relaxing, what with Jim being laconic and principled and mildly cynical and _funny_.

After about twenty minutes, Rodney says, “Oh my God. You’ve been modeling yourself on Jim Rockford this entire time. Haven’t you?”

“Um. I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.”

“You have! You have been doing it! I can’t believe I’m in a relationship with someone who emulates a sarcastic private investigator who drives a car the size of the Yukon.”

“But I also emulate some of the guys in _Party in Provincetown_. That’s okay, right?”

Rodney looks a bit stricken. “Of course, of course. And Rockford’s fine too!” John’s on his back, looking up at Rodney’s face. He smiles and waits. Finally Rodney closes his eyes and blurts out, “I don’t suppose you’d want to, um, emulate any of those Provincetown guys now, would you?”

“Well, okay,” John says, sitting up and turning to look at Rodney. “But since it’s my birthday, I think I get to make some requests.”

“It’s your birthday in eight-point-two Atlantean days, and I’m the one who got you an amazing gift,” Rodney says distractedly, searching the bottom of the popcorn bowl for any strays. “Shit. I said that out loud, didn’t I?”

John laughs, the loud one he hates but can’t help making when he sees the worried look on Rodney’s face. He leans in to press a kiss to Rodney’s mouth and then says, “I won’t hold it against you.”

**Author's Note:**

> The story's title is the title of _The Rockford Files_ Episode 5x08.


End file.
